Abstract
This ethnography exposes the friction that emerges when moving from one side of the border to another and then back to the homeland. The interaction with borders that frames immigrants as strange in ways that do not match assumed categorization was first perceived by Wagner on a ferry boat between Algeciras, Spain and Tangier, Morocco as an American college student. What Wagner describes as an “ethnography of the holidays” focuses on Moroccan families living in Europe who travel back “home” for the summer holidays. Even though returning to the homeland is often perceived as a place to reunite with one’s origins, many people traveling to Morocco feel “neither from here nor there” as they try to negotiate their identity as Moroccan. It is a constant negotiation on senses of belonging in the diasporic home and the current country of residence. Such negotiations take place along visually perceived embodiment that connects with communicative practices and other means of categorization. Diasporic visitors (DVs) come from Moroccan families yet have lived their entire lives, or most of them, in another country due to the increased flow of migration in search for jobs and opportunities. Their sense of “being Moroccan” is challenged when travelling to Morocco in everyday interactions with people and places in their territorial homeland. “Being Moroccan” becomes an attractor in assemblage, a categorial ideal-type, shaped through dimensions and practices of embodiment that emerge in the encounters that DVs have with resident Moroccans.
Chapter 1, “Pathways and Backgrounds,” provides a description of three layers of pathways that map the ways in which belonging and not belonging are important for diasporic Moroccans. The first layer relates to the history of migration between Morocco and the European nations of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, which accounts for the presence of Moroccans in Europe. The flow of migration into European countries increased during a guest worker migration period ending in 1974 when Morocco experienced economic crisis. Migrants from Morocco began to bring their families to Europe to settle permanently in fear of returning home to unemployment and poverty. The second layer entails multilingual practices in Morocco in which intersections of linguistic codes are practiced in the home and outside the home by post-migrant Moroccans. The way language is practiced becomes relevant to diasporic visitors in their interactions with other Moroccans in public spaces. The last layer includes the linguistic performances by DVs that demonstrate their “Moroccanness” and their abilities to bargain. The “foreignness” felt by diasporic Moroccans is characterized through their linguistic skills, their embodiment, and their perceived economic status.
In Chapter 2, “Integrating Theory and Method,” Wagner suggests an ontology where interaction and becoming align with theoretical perspectives from Blommaert (2013) who shifts away from the concept of “identity” and moves towards “complexity.” Wagner problematizes the sociolinguistic aspect of identity that may define it as static. Identity is, rather, in constant state of becoming, always emergent. Adding to Blommaert’s perspective, Wagner suggests incorporating “embodimentality.” The complexity of entities and their shifts in interaction, and the communicative matter produced through bodies, is represented through this notion of embodied materialities. Wagner makes a theoretical distinction between material and expressive from DeLanda (2006) to distinguish the linguistic practice (expressive) from the corporal practice (material). Embodimentality combines choosing to speak in a certain code and habits of hexis including habitual gestures, practices, and sounds. Wagner combines hexis with linguistic habits to show how bodies communicate without intention during interaction. In sum, Wagner suggests “destroying core concepts in favor of emergent becomings, always interactional and always a normal human mode of operation, which permits us researchers to investigate how categories are made” (p. 56). The transformation of embodied practices DVs attempt in their efforts to blend in with locals indicates how different dimensions of embodimentality come into play as materialities that can and cannot be reshaped, expressivities that need to coordinate with materialities in order for passing as Moroccans to be effective. Through discursive and interactional data, Wagner intends to demonstrate that essentialized definitions of “Moroccanness” are not trustworthy, since attributes linked to this category are not always present. “Being Moroccan” is, instead, characterized through assemblage and emergent through interactions.
Chapter 3, “Defining the Category ‘Moroccan’: Embodied Misrecognitions and Dynamics of Passing,” incorporates narratives about moments of interactions between DVs and resident Moroccans. DVs reveal they are aware that they are “strange” in Morocco. They feel they are attached to this place as descendants, yet are not bound to its categories in the same fashion as residents due to their once a year, or less, visits. They are always ready to manage their strangeness in interactions through their own embodied and linguistic resources. Derija is used as their language of choice whenever they are around Moroccan residents and vendors in order to appear more Moroccan. It is mentioned that residents know when people are different even if they speak “very Arabic.” Local Moroccans can hear DVs are not local through their language use and accents. DVs identify the ways they feel they are recognized as “not being locally Moroccan” through the indexical embodied attributes of dress and language. Locals can see it in their bodies through the way they dress and do their hair, as well. Dress, such as traditional clothing (djellabas), is reported to be a way to effectively disguise the self and blend in with the crowd.
In Chapter 4, “Bargaining for Morocanness,” bargaining at the local souq entails negotiating the “being Moroccan” identity. Since the “being European” identity is generally seen as more economically advantaged than that of local residents, it is believed that vendors try to raise merchandise prices for non-Moroccans. DVs believe that in order to achieve the right price, they have to effectively speak derija, the common language in Morocco, and be categorized as a “Moroccan customer” and not a tourist. Vendors seem aware of DVs’ “non-Morocanness” despite their derija skills and intentional interactional communicative work to smooth their strangeness to obtain the right price. They do not appear to have difficulty maintaining their “Morocanness-by-descent” through language, yet their place affiliation becomes an issue in determining price. DVs created problematically complex stances, as their embodimentality and categorial claims do not often match. Building vendor–client relationships is relevant to vendors to a higher degree than “being-Moroccan.” However, DV negotiating is focused on being resistant and argumentative rather than on building trust and friendship with vendors. The tone of their negotiation is insistent rather than harmonious and affiliative, claiming the right to the right price through the portrayal of “Moroccanness” by descent and/or place. Effective negotiations consisted of claims of bringing more clients to the local shop. In this manner, “place,” referring to place of residence, can be negotiated through being a tourist who guarantees more business.
Chapter 5, “A New Category? Becoming ‘Diasporically-Moroccan,’” focuses on DVs’ actions when they are not actively seeking to be seen as “Moroccan.” These practices emerge when embodimentalities as multiplicities become integrated into sociocultural landscapes. The negotiation of being Moroccan or French does not exist in these instances. Wagner provides empirical examples of times when “becoming diasporically-Moroccan” is displayed without restrictions and emerges as something new. For instance, Moroccan visitors were observed wearing gondorras, a traditional clothing, in diasporically mediated ways. Instead of being used as a traditional garment with fully covering clothing underneath, DVs were wearing them frequently as a decorative outer layer during beach outings. An item of local material culture evokes categorial differences between DVs and resident Moroccans and takes on characteristics of “diasporicness” through practiced embodimentalities. In this chapter, unlike other chapters, Moroccanness is not a subject of negotiation; rather, diasporic embodimentalities emerge. These instances show how the category “diasporic Moroccan” can be an accepted and unmarked category.
This ethnography explores the negotiations of sense of belonging that post-migrant generations experience during summer holidays. It makes a contribution to theoretical perspectives on identities by challenging existing sociolinguistic views. This book may be of interest to sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists due to its integration and problematization of theoretical frameworks from both fields. The relationship between body, language, and identity is presented through a new lens in ways that illuminate the dynamic interactions of diasporic Moroccans. Even though the focal group in this ethnography are diasporic Moroccans, other migrants in different border regions may relate to the experiences described in this book. The border region of Europe and Africa may resemble that of the USA and Mexico in increased flows of migration and feelings of “in-betweenness” felt by Mexicans in the USA and in their home country. This ethnography provides relevant insight into the experiences and practices of migrants in their own home country, as well as a new theoretical lens on identity.